May 20: Saturday Stories
Day 451: Lviv Mykolaiv Sumy Dnipro Bakhmut Kursk KyivStreet Wagner Patrushev RUtaxes VTB G7 Jeddah USsanctions UKsanctions Georgia A&Ps UKDef Rosenberg Panyi Niland Jukes Ezhov Insider OCCRP
Catching up…
EA Worldview’s Ukraine Up-date- hop over to Scott’s amazing hourly Ukraine up-date page. I’ll fill in with some bits and bobs.
Georgian activists met the first direct from from Moscow in four years with a protest rally, as reported by the Insider. The police detained several protesters as they tried to question travellers that were getting off the flight.
Stories we’re following…
Explosions were reported in Lviv, as well as in Chernihiv, Mykolaiv, and Dnipropetrovsk oblasts. Russian attacks in the city of Kryvyi Rih, located in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, injured two people, one seriously, and damaged several buildings overnight on May 19.
Three employees of the company "Sumyoblenergo" died in the Sumy region, as reported by the Ministry of Energy of Ukraine. The victims were inspecting a damaged power line. Sumyoblenergo added that, according to preliminary information, three men died during the attack by Russian drones.
Ukraine downs 3 cruise missiles, 16 drones overnight. Ukraine's air defenses successfully shot down three out of the six cruise missiles and 16 out of the 22 kamikaze drones Russia launched at Ukraine overnight on May 19, Ukraine's Air Force reported on Telegram.
An air battle over Kyiv last night may have been the first time some of the world’s most advanced strike missiles and air defenses were engaged in intense combat over a major capital city in the west, the Kyiv Independent’s Illia Ponomarenko writes in his latest newsletter.
Russian forces are trying to recapture land they have lost around the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, but Kyiv’s forces are repelling the attacks, deputy Ukrainian defence minister Hanna Maliar claimed on Friday. Russian forces have gained some ground inside the city itself, but they do not control it and fighting rages on, Reuters reports Maliar said in televised comments.
Roman Starovoyt, governor of Kursk region in Russia, has posted to Telegram to claim that “the Korenevsky district was shelled by the armed forces of Ukraine”. He said “a total of eight arrivals were counted. Power lines and the fence of the electrical substation were damaged.”
Russia's special forces reportedly deployed near Ukraine's borders for ‘diversion activities.’ Elite Russian troops have arrived in Tyotkino, Kursk Oblast, to conduct “diversion” and “anti-diversion” activities at the Russo-Ukrainian border, the National Resistance Center of Ukraine reported on May 19.
As reported by the Mayor of Kyiv, Vitaliy Klitschko, three metro stations have been renamed. The Lev Tolstoy Square station is now the Ukrainian Heroes Square, the Friendship of Peoples station will now be called Zverynetska, and the Prospekt Pravdy station under construction will be named Varshavskaya. Several streets and lanes were also renamed: Orlovsky Lane in the Shevchenko district of the city was renamed George Orwell Lane.
Financial Times: Wagner mercenaries procure equipment despite Western sanctions. The Russian Wagner mercenary company continues to use intermediaries to buy equipment in China for its activities in Ukraine and Africa. This reveals the inability of Western sanctions to successfully cut supply streams from the group, Financial Times reports.
Steve Rosenberg: In today’s Russian papers: Russian soldiers face up to 10 years in prison (back in Russia) if they surrender on the battlefield, ordered to “put up stiff resistance…even if completely surrounded.”
Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev has claimed that the United States was involved in the killing of a pro-war military blogger in a bomb blast in St Petersburg in April, and the car bombing of a nationalist writer and politician earlier in May, Russian news agencies reported according to Reuters.
The Russian government has drafted a bill giving the right to establish "taxes of an emergency nature" by federal laws. RBC reviewed the relevant document . At the same time, the Cabinet of Ministers prepared a bill on a “one-time tax on excess profits of past years”, which will apply to this type of tax.
Russian state Bank VTB reported that the bank's clients purchased 4.8 tons of gold bars in April, which is 79% more than in March and more than three times in April last year. As of the end of the month, the portfolio of bars sold by the bank increased by 12% and exceeded 44 tons.
“Gold, as an asset with currency exposure in the Russian infrastructure, is well suited for diversifying investments, and investors are actively including it in their portfolios. In addition, gold bars can act as an alternative to the dollar as a tool for hedging currency risks. We predict that demand for gold purchases will continue this year,” added Yulia Bezmenova, Vice President, Head of Business Development at VTB Private Banking.
Zelensky to visit G7 summit in person. President Volodymyr Zelensky will travel to Japan this week to join the Group of Seven (G7) leaders in person, people familiar with the planning told Bloomberg. Japanese officials earlier said that Zelensky would join virtually. Before heading to Japan, Zelensky stopped in Jeddah where he attended an Arab League meeting ahead of flying on to Japan for the G7 summit.
Zelensky arrives in Saudi Arabia, met with crown prince. President Zelensky arrived in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on May 19. The president is expected to speak at the Arab League summit and to meet the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for bilateral talks.
While addressing the Arab League in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, president Zelensky said:
“Ukrainians has never chosen the war. Our troops didn’t go to other lands. We do not engage in annexation and plunder of other nation’s resources. But we will never submit to any foreigners or colonisers. That’s why we fight.
“I am sure you will understand our main emotion, the main call I want to leave in Jeddah, a noble call to all of you to help protect our people including Ukrainian Muslim community.”
Kyiv would consider allowing Russian ammonia to transit its territory for export on condition the newly renewed Black Sea grain deal is expanded to include more Ukrainian ports and a wider range of commodities, a government source told Reuters.
G7 leaders to discuss international summit on Ukraine peace. Group of Seven (G7) leaders will discuss the idea of holding an international summit on Ukraine peace when they meet in Japan this week, Reuters reported, citing an EU official.
The G7 group of nations has urged Russia to stop its objection to the Black Sea grain deal and told it to halt “threatening global food supplies”. In a statement jointly released on Friday, they said:
We will continue to support the export of Ukrainian agri-products including through the EU-Ukraine solidarity lanes. In this regard, we support the expansion and extension of the Black Sea Grain Initiative (BSGI) and we call upon Russia to stop threatening global food supplies and allow the BSGI to operate at its maximum potential.
The EU and the UK will hit the Russian diamond trade as part of sanctions over the war in Ukraine. “Russian diamonds are not eternal,” said the head of the European Council, Charles Michel, at the G7 summit in Hiroshima and announced the adoption of restrictions on precious stones. However, he did not specify what they will be.
Read the article from OCCRP here.
US signals to allies that it won’t block them from exporting F-16 jets to Ukraine. Sources familiar with the matter told CNN that the Biden administration has conveyed to European allies its willingness to permit them to export F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine.
President Biden has told G7 leaders that Washington will support a joint effort with allies to train Ukrainian pilots on F-16 fighter jets, CNN reported on Friday, citing a senior US official.
US imposes sanctions on 69 Russian companies
The US Department of Commerce announced sanctions against 71 companies. The restrictions included 69 Russian organizations, as well as one from Armenia and one from Kyrgyzstan. According to Reuters, the sanctions target the Russian military-industrial complex, as well as gas and oil projects in Russia and Belarus. Sanctions have also been imposed against aircraft repair and spare parts factories, tractor and automobile plants.
US adds 46 Russian individuals to sanctions list. Among them are Deputy Prime Minister Victoria Abramchenko, Presidential Aide Igor Levitin, Commissioner for Human Rights Tatyana Moskalkova, Minister of Education Sergei Kravtsov, Rector of St. Petersburg Mining University Vladimir Litvinenko.
The UK unveiled new sanctions on 86 entities ahead of the meeting. The British prime minister, Rishi Sunak, announced a UK ban on imports of Russian diamonds and Russian-origin copper, nickel and aluminium. Sunak also has a self-declared mission to push India into showing greater support for Ukraine. The new measures are driven by "the theft of Ukrainian grain" and are aimed at advanced military technology and Russia's "remaining sources of income," the press release emphasizes. Nine organizations affiliated with Rosatom, including UMATEX, which produces composite materials, and Trinity, which specializes in laser systems, fell under the restrictions.
Russian Foreign Ministry bans Barack Obama from entering Russia. Together with him, as a "countermeasure" in response to sanctions, another 499 Americans are prohibited from visiting the Russian Federation. Among them are congressmen and heads of military-industrial complex companies supplying weapons to Ukraine, as well as “those who are directly involved in the persecution of dissidents in the wake of the so-called ‘storming of the Capitol’.”
The Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation has put the prosecutor of the ICC, Karim Ahmad Khan, on the wanted list. Mediazona drew attention to the information in the department's wanted database. Earlier, Bastrykin said that the judges of the International Criminal Court, who issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin and children's ombudsman Maria Lvova-Belova, would also be put on the wanted list.
Georgia resumes flights with Russia, hundreds protest in Tbilisi. Hundreds protested in Tbilisi's streets and near the city's airport after the flights between Russia and Georgia resumed on May 19.
Szabolcs Panyi: “In response to the latest Discord leaks story, PM Orbán's foreign minister is using some serious escalatory rhetoric - for the very first time, hinting at military response from Hungary against Ukraine. What is he trying to achieve here? How will NATO allies like Poland react?”
The ‘Crimea Dilemma’? There is No Dilemma
Paul Niland, Byline Times, 17 May 2023
The notion of Crimea being a kind of special place for the people of Russia is born of one factor: propaganda.
It is the after-the-fact justifications of Putin’s actions in February and March of 2014 that have led to widespread acceptance of claims that Crimea was always really a part of Russia, that Khrushchev mistakenly ceded this territory to Ukraine only a few decades ago, and that the peninsula is largely home to ethnic Russians and/or Russian speakers. None of this, in fact, is real or relevant.
In September last year, Putin held a lavish ceremony in the Kremlin to ‘formally’ announce that the region of Kherson, though not fully controlled by Russia, was now a part of the Russian Federation. During the ceremony, he declared that Russia would use “all the forces and means at their disposal” to “protect” this newly acquired territory. [continue reading]
Sergei Ezhov, BiZness as usual: 25 European companies still supplying the Russian army
Sanctions against Russian defense companies have not interfered with Western supplies – equipment is still being imported by military contractors who have escaped sanctions lists. European businessmen have continued to sell goods to Russian firms that supply the country’s army with microchips for missiles, shells, fuses, tactical boots, body armor, engines for warships, and many other goods. The Insider confirmed supplies coming in from Germany, France, Switzerland, Hungary, Slovakia, Italy, Estonia, Lithuania, Austria, and Poland.
Body armor
NPP Class, a manufacturer of body armor for Russia’s army and security services, imported a cutting tool from Italy supplied by Minelli Carmello. [continue reading]
